


Even Angels Have Bad Hair Days

by The_Bentley



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Crowley's Really a Sweetheart He Just Won't Admit It, Fluff, Hair, Hair Brushing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-14 17:33:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18952723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Bentley/pseuds/The_Bentley
Summary: His golden, curly hair had exactly one style – cropped short and practical.  It had been like that when Crowley first accosted him just outside of Eden on a dark and stormy night.  It had stayed short and practical throughout all of history, even in times when longer styles became fashionable for men.  It was one of the rare constants Crowley knew of in this ever-changing universe.  Well, he could scratch that off the list now.There are several stories floating around about Aziraphale brushing, braiding, etc. Crowley's hair.  I flipped it for this story.  Crowley, being Crowley, is irritated when Aziraphale requires his help with some hair care.  But he learns something about their relationship in the process.





	Even Angels Have Bad Hair Days

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to everyone who's written a Crowley/Aziraphale hair care story in the past month or so. You all inspired me with this one. :)

Crowley was behind the till sorting mail into several separate piles when the bright blue-white light opened up from above, signaling an arrival from Heaven.  Lightening quick he was gone, a smallish snake hiding amongst the crowded shelves beneath the counter.  With Aziraphale absent, he wasn’t going to take any chances.

There was a sound of feet touching the floor then the brightness fled, the bookshop returning to its usual dingy, slightly dark state.  Taking advantage of the serpentine abilities of his current form, Crowley flicked out his tongue to pick up a few odor molecules from the air, pressing them against the specialized scent organ on the roof of his mouth.  He could smell cream cake, dusty old pages, ink, cocoa and a certain vanilla-scented hand lotion.  Aziraphale had finally returned. 

“Angel,” he said stepping out into the bookshop in his favorite form.  “You’re back.”      

Aziraphale gave him a small, friendly smile as he brushed some invisible lint off his sleeve.  “Hello, my dear.  How long has it been this time and why are you going through my mail?”

“Almost nine months and someone has to pay your bills.  You’re welcome.”

Heading towards the ancient coatrack he kept in the backroom, Aziraphale flashed Crowley what he hoped was a grateful look even though knowing the demon took care of things in his absence made him a bit uncomfortable.  Aziraphale was very aware Crowley just made money out of raw firmament instead of earning it, which smacked a bit of cheating in his opinion.  But at least he wouldn’t have bill collectors banging down his door. 

“What took so long?” asked Crowley from the doorway where he was now leaning, probably waiting for an invitation to come in the backroom for a drink.  Or several bottles worth, as it always went with them.

Taking the hint, Aziraphale got out the glasses and a particularly good bottle of scotch.  You couldn’t get a decent drink in Heaven, which was what he really was craving right now.  Crowley slid into his usual seat on the worn leather couch while Aziraphale settled himself in his reading chair before pouring two glasses of the rich, brown liquor.

Aziraphale had the unfortunate luck to inadvertently order a cursed book whose dark magic was beyond his ability to heal.  Three days after handling it, he was forced to return to Heaven where Raphael spent an awful lot of time extracting the curse from his fingers while lecturing him about getting his head out of the clouds and paying closer attention to where he was putting his hands because one never knew with these old artifacts.  He had no clue he’d been up there for almost nine entire months getting his hand sorted out.

He had forgotten to take off that worn, old bowler hat he had taken to wearing mostly because it aggravated Crowley so much.  Pulling it off his head, he threw it perfectly on the coatrack as his hair tumbled down free of the hat.  Crowley choked, spitting expensive scotch over the antique throw covering the couch cushions. 

“What in Go- . . .  Sa- . . . _someone’s_ name have you done with your hair?  Did you lose a bet with Gabriel?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” replied Aziraphale primly.

His golden, curly hair had exactly one style – cropped short and practical.  It had been like that when Crowley first accosted him just outside of Eden on a dark and stormy night.  It had stayed short and practical throughout all of history, even in times when longer styles became fashionable for men.  It was one of the rare constants Crowley knew of in this ever-changing universe.  Well, he could scratch that off the list now.

That usually neat hair was now an unbrushed, shoulder-length, blond, curly mass twisted angrily into tangles that made Aziraphale look like he had just been dragged quite a distance by a horse.  Through a hedge.  One with the thickest thorns possible.

“Spill it, angel.  What’s going on?”  Crowley languidly waved away the spit take with which he had given the couch an unholy baptism. 

“Everything’s a mess,” Aziraphale very nearly wailed.  “It started growing about halfway through the healing process.  Even Raphael couldn’t fix it.  He said we probably have just disrupted the shape-shifting fields and it would take a while for them to settle back down.  He’s seen this before, he told me.  Apparently it’s no big deal because it sorts itself out eventually.  But I can’t go out in public looking like this!  Do you know what it’s like to have some part of your body not cooperate when it comes to shape shifting?”

“Do tell,” hissed Crowley, rolling the golden serpentine eyes he had been cursed to wear since that whole incident with a piece of forbidden fruit in the Garden.  Aziraphale was too upset to get the hint.

Bless it all.  The last thing Crowley wanted to deal with was a hysterical Aziraphale.  But they sure as hell couldn’t go to expensive restaurants when he was sporting a hairstyle nobody found attractive since people discovered how to make combs.  He took a gulp of scotch to give himself time to think.  He came up with nothing.  Well, he was just going to have to live with takeout in the backroom or going to lunch by himself, which would just put Aziraphale in a snit.  Great options.

On the other hand, he so wanted to excuse himself, head out to the Bentley and sit in it having a really good laugh at Aziraphale’s expense. 

“Can you miracle it short?”

“No, it grows back almost immediately.”

“Have you tried taking care of it?  Washing it?  Brushing it?  That kind of stuff.”

“It requires care?”

“You’ve lived on this Earth for six thousand years in a human body, yet never realized people have to take care of their hair, too?”  Crowley wanted to go bang his head on the nearest wall.  How could someone like Aziraphale, who got regular manicures, not know hair required maintenance as well?

“Well I just shut off the mechanism that made it grow and that was that.”

“Do you ever shower?”

“No.  Why would I bother when I can miracle myself clean?”

“If I shaved it all off right now, would it grow back tangled like that?”

“Yes.”

“Did it grow in like that?”

“No.  It happened over time.”

“Great job, Aziraphale.  You’ve managed to take your hair beyond magical help.  We’re going to have to do this the hard way and hope it doesn’t just want to go back to looking like _that_ when we’re done.”

Aziraphale just looked at him over the edge of his glass, which he had nearly drained.  He didn’t particularly like the sarcastic tone of Crowley’s voice and what it implied.  “Is this going to hurt or something?”

“Probably.”

“Oh.  Great.  Let’s start tomorrow then.  I’m not ready to go through that tonight.”

Crowley just shrugged.  He wasn’t feeling much like tackling that obnoxious mess situated on Aziraphale’s head either.  They finished their drinking and catching up then Crowley stumbled out, sobering up enough to drive home with the promise he’d be back in the morning to assist with Aziraphale’s hair problem.

Aziraphale was pretty sure he could hear him laughing hysterically in the Bentley before he started it.

 

~*~*~

 

Crowley was as good as his word, returning at about nine o’clock, armed with various hair care products from combs and brushes to shampoo and detangler.  Aziraphale poked at it all with curiosity after Crowley dumped it on the counter next to the till wondering what they were going to do with it everything.

Crowley was all business.  “We need to wash it first.  What have you got upstairs?  It’s just a flat up there, isn’t it?  I assume if that’s the case, it has a bathroom.”

“Yes, it does.  But all I do is store things in the bedroom.  I don’t use anything else up there.”

“Ok, I’m probably going to walk into a shower that’s a cobweb factory full of dead spiders and toilet full of mold gone wild.  Even I occasionally flush mine,” he grabbed the shampoo, conditioner and detangler off the till counter, opened the door to the staircase and started up the stairs.  “You coming?”

Aziraphale scrambled after him, pointing him to the door leading to the bathroom when he asked.  Crowley put a hand the knob, hesitated.

“If the mold in there has become civilized enough to develop language skills, I’m not dealing with it.  We’ll go to my flat.”

Aziraphale covertly miracled the room clean, except for a layer of dust.  “It should be ok except for some dirt, my dear.  Honestly, you act like I never bother to tidy up around here.”

Crowley managed to bite his preternaturally long tongue at that remark if only because he needed Aziraphale in a good mood for this.  He marched in, waved the rest of the dust away and set his things down on the sink.

“C’mon.  Get in here.” 

Aziraphale entered and was subjected to a lecture on how to apply and rinse out shampoo and conditioner.  With that, Crowley left him to take his first shower ever that did not involve getting caught out in an unexpected downpour _sans_ umbrella.  It wasn’t too long before the water shut off and the angel was calling for him.

“Crowley, I’m done.  Now what?”           

 _For the love of all that’s blessed, this can’t really be happening,_ the demon thought.

A pleasant look pasted on his face instead of the irritated scowl it wanted to sport, Crowley peeked into the room.  Aziraphale had stuck his head, and thankfully no more, out of the shower, dripping water all over the floor.

Crowley threw him the expensive, white towel he had wished up on the unused towel rack earlier.  “Use that.  Or miracle yourself dry, but leave that hair damp.  It’ll help the detangler soak in.” 

It was lucky he didn’t sardonically blurt out what he really wanted to say, which was, “Are you _really_ that clueless?”

“Meet me in the backroom when you’re done,” he called back before heading downstairs.  He certainly needed a drink.  Or four.  Preferably rather strong ones.

Ten minutes later, he was sitting in Aziraphale’s threadbare reading chair with Aziraphale seated on the old wooden stool he normally kept behind the till in front of him, smelling of sweet-scented detangler as Crowley ever-so-carefully pulled a large-toothed comb good for getting out stubborn knots through each and every tangle.

It was slow going, but luckily with only the occasional slight jump or whimper from Aziraphale when Crowley hit a particularly bad part.  His hand lay casually on Crowley’s knee, clenching a bit once in a while when Crowley had to tug industriously at a particularly difficult snarl.  Occasionally the angel would close his eyes in pure bliss when Crowley had worked through a tangle and was just combing the smooth, wet strands straight.  The action made the demon feel a warm, glowing feeling he so very rarely experienced in his long life.  Oh, the tender thoughts this angel dredged up in him!

Temper dissipated by the steady, rhythmic work, Crowley found he was actually relishing his pampering of Aziraphale.  It felt bizarrely wonderful to indulge Aziraphale for a change; usually it was reversed.  Aziraphale made sure his cocoa was perfect.  Aziraphale put up with his sarcasm and moods.  Aziraphale kept a stock of liquor he liked in his backroom.  Aziraphale dropped everything to go to lunch with him.  Aziraphale helped him try to stop the Apocalypse despite first having reservations about his plans.  His adoration of the angel was upped a few notches as he realized then exactly how accommodating Aziraphale was towards him.  If the situation was reversed, Crowley’s patience would have worn thin enough to wish he had never set eyes on the angel in less time than it took humans to evolve to the point of being interesting. 

He put down the large-toothed comb and picked up a brush.  With care not usually seen in a demon, he passed it through those strands of gold, remembering days spent in Aziraphale’s presence. That golden hair and those blue eyes seemed to figure in almost every good memory he could recollect.  So much for all that “hereditary enemies” crap.  He had more in common with a celestial being who had shared the Earth with him for thousands of years than he did any of the infernal ones populating Hell below.  They both had gone native; this was just the inevitable result.   

“You should keep it longer.  Not this long, but not that insanely short look you’ve been sporting since I met you.”

“If I do, will you teach me how to take care of it?”

“I’ll think about it.”

Crowley made a gesture near Aziraphale’s head, instantly drying his hair.  It now lay shining in beautiful light blond ringlets that would have done Eden’s Guardian of the Eastern Gate proud.  The demon smiled, thinking sweet thoughts he would keep to himself.  He wanted to comb his hands through that soft hair so badly, telling Aziraphale how absolutely lovely it was.  Instead, he regretfully placed the brush next to the comb on the side table before telling the angel he was finished.

Aziraphale turned around to grasp both of his hands.  “Thank you so much, Crowley.  I don’t know what I’d do without you sometimes.”

“I really don’t know, either,” replied Crowley in his usual offhand manner even though it warmed his heart to know that someone out there actually needed him.  Him.  Needed.  What a concept indeed!

He closed his eyes, permitting himself to feel nothing but delight for a small moment.

 

~*~*~

 

Two weeks later, Crowley breezily entered the bookshop to pick up the angel for lunch, surprised to see the long, blond tresses were gone.  Aziraphale looked down, blushing a bit as he noticed Crowley stop in his tracks to look him over.

“After you,” said Crowley with a grand gesture that made Aziraphale smile. 

Then he followed Aziraphale out, getting a very good look at the tousled layers of light gold curls that now tickled the tops of his ears and spilled over on to his collar.  Maybe later he’d suggest to Aziraphale that they could use a good brushing.


End file.
